Feed the monster: web services seen as means of increasing network traffic - For Starters - Brief Article

Telecommunications, June, 2002 by Ted McKenna

Carriers naturally want to boost traffic on their networks. One sure-fire way: run more third-party applications over them, according to Kinzan, a provider of Web services software.

NTT's DoCoMo service sets a perfect example. Thousands of content providers create applications for use on the wireless network, and NTT takes care of the bill processing and settlement, along with service delivery. By offering more than simple network capacity, the service spurs demand for that capacity.

Kinzan says the same model can be extended to service providers elsewhere, whether wireline or wireless. A carrier might offer proprietary information like 411 directories electronically and in' a customized way--to a particular enterprise, for example. Or their customers could create their own type of service but use the carrier to oversee its management.

"Customers use a system or tool provided by the telecom provider to create the application, then the telco uses its network to run the service for them," says Kinzan CEO and President Gari Cheever.

Software giant Microsoft has been push ing its Web services for telecom carriers through its .NET initiative, recently announcing that Deutsche Telekom will use its technology to deliver XML Web services and Internet applications such as MSN Messenger and Hotmail. Another new customer is Cable & Wireless, which plans to use the .NET platform to allow customers on its Exodus hosting network to build, deploy and manage XML Web services.

But carriers will lose out on a major source of revenue if they permit a single company to be the dominant supplier of software over their networks, according to Cheever.

By facilitating the use on its networks of applications from many vendors and thereby offering more of a choice, carriers have the chance to bring more new customers on their networks--to feed the bandwidth monster, as Cheever says engineers at one carrier put it.

Microsoft, in response, says its .NET platform is ideal for fostering the use of XML Web services that link virtually any system, regardless of the underlying platform or operating system.

Kinzan says a forthcoming commercial release of its technology will be aimed mainly at enterprise customers, but that its technology has already been purchased by NTT Communications and is being tested by BT and Deutsche Telekom.